devnull wrote: » Realistically having traveled throughout Europe a fair bit over the past few years I'd rank OBB Railjet and Italo as some great examples of how Intercity travel should be done. I'd also put DB ICE up there as well. Of course the demand levels for here are not going to be like they are for those operators, but the rolling standard stock is excellent. There are a few things that set Italo and Trenitalia apart, but generally I've found the service is better on the former and more personable. Especially as someone on Business or as a tourist in Italy who doesn't speak much Italian, Italo seemed much the friendlier brand in terms of staff and at stations.
Del.Monte wrote: » The Translink/NIR/IE Enterprise De Deitrich stock http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/2017/08/16/enterprise-on-the-move/ If rail travel becomes slower, more expensive and less comfortable than coach travel there's no future for it save for in urban situations.
Markcheese wrote: » I think you've hit the nail on the head there ..from an Irish point of view , It's years since I've bothered taking an intercity train , it's cheaper and quicker to get the coach , It's not quite as comfortable but there's not much in it ,
BonnieSituation wrote: » Last time I got an intercity train was last August and it was to Sligo. There wasn't a hope of me getting a coach.
GT89 wrote: » Comparing Italo with Trenitalia is sort of like comparing Aircoach or Citylink with Bus Eireann or Dublin Bus. Trenitalia operates across the whole of Italy and operates all the PSO routes essentially. Italo is an open access operator there's been a few in various countries around like Flixtrain in Germany or Grand Central in the UK.
GT89 wrote: » I agree about regional trains there all though they have improved since the first time i visited there. I've been on the Italo and it was impressive but I was more talking about the bog standard non high speed intercity trains that run in Italy. I travelled on a few of them in Italy because they were cheaper than the high speed trains and some of the places I wanted to go weren't served by high speed lines. Even though they weren't high speed they were still better than anything IE have on Intercity routes to offer in terms of comfort and speed. Many countries with high speed rail still offer standard non high speed intercity trains which are still quite good. This because the high speed networks don't go everywhere and because the fares are generally more expensive on high speed services. This is the standard IE should be going for.
bk wrote: » Dublin to Cork/Galway/Limerick/Belfast I take the coach, but yes, Sligo or Killarney I'd take the train. Train is significantly faster then coach to Sligo/Killarney, plus Sligo just has BE, it doesn't have the nicer intercity coach services like the other cities. Rational decisions all round. While Trenitalia obviously has a much wider remit, you can absolutely compare Italo to Trenitalia's high speed service on the same route, as they are directly competing with one another on those routes. It would be more like comparing Aircoach to GoBus on the Cork route. Trenitalia has definitely improved it's service since the market was opened up and they faced competition. They were improving the quality of their services and restructuring for years before the market was opened up as they knew they would face this competition. Metrics like speed, frequency, on time percentage, reliability were all greatly improved in preparation for the market opening up plus new trains. Trains in Italy use to be relatively poor, the much improved service you experience today is due to these market changes. Sure, I've been on those trains too. They are fine, but most of the difference is down to them being mostly electric trains and the resulting benefit in quieter and smoother ride. Also the double deckers are very interesting. But the thing to keep in mind, you are talking about Italy here, a country of 60 million people with lots of large metro areas. Even outside of the high speed rail, the standard intercity rail is still operating between much bigger cities then here. Truth of the matter, we really don't have many big cities. We basically just have Dublin. Cork And Belfast would barely register as a city in most European countries and no offence to anyone from them, but Limerick/Galway/Waterford would be simply called big towns in most of Europe. As a result, we barely have a low level intercity service between Cork - Dublin - Belfast and the rest of the network is basically a regional train service rather then real intercity. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it can't be improved, but you do have to be some what realistic about our demographics and thus demand when comparing to the likes of a relatively big country like Italy.
BonnieSituation wrote: » The Intercity train I took before the Sligo trip was to Galway. I'd ALWAYS choose train over coaches/road travel where possible.
NeuralNetwork wrote: » I'd agree, the level of comfort on the trains leaves a lot to be desired. If they weren't going to go for high speed, they needed to go for high comfort and they haven't done that. I find the Cork-Dublin 'pointier' trains have weird intense blue shade to the windows that makes them seem a bit 'space age' but it's not conducive to relaxing and the seats on all of them are quite hard and I find them uncomfortable for my back. The fact that you can spread yourself out a bit more and guarantee at seat power is useful, but that's about it. Also things like the inability to make a cappuccino in what is a fully fitted out kitchen on the main Cork trains is a bit inexcusable at this stage. Just put in a bean-to-cup coffee machine. I'd agree on the verbose announcements. They could be done so much more concisely and while I've nothing against the guy's voice, it's a bad choice. They could pick someone with softer speech. It reminds me of one of those announcements you'd expect on the Revenue helpdesk or something. "Next station : Thurles ... Is é Durlas an chéad stáisiún eile" There's no need for all this waffle about thank you for travelling with Iarnrod Eireann and bear sneachana and so on.
L1011 wrote: » The transmission is replaced in one set as a trial for fuel efficiency as stated above, not for failure reasons. If the Mk3s had been retained they would have had a significant refurb which would have removed the fat cushioned seating and big tables and you'd likely get a very 22000 style interior Loco haulage is on the way out - if you want to move from DMU it'll be to EMU with electrification, not back to loco. Passengers don't care about liveries.
L1011 wrote: » If the Mk3s had been retained they would have had a significant refurb which would have removed the fat cushioned seating and big tables and you'd likely get a very 22000 style interior
GT89 wrote: » Comparing Italo with Trenitalia is sort of like comparing Aircoach or Citylink with Bus Eireann or Dublin Bus. Trenitalia operates across the whole of Italy and operates all the PSO routes essentially. Italo is an open access operator there's been a few in various countries around like Flixtrain in Germany or Grand Central in the UK. Italo pay a fee to the state to operate on it's track a mutually beneficial deal in order to help the government recoup the cost of building the high speed infrastructure. Italo make money as a commercial operator and don't receive subsidy although Trenitalia and Italo do compete on high speed routes. The majority of my bad experiences on trains have been in the UK and Ireland. I can put up with some element of shoddyness on commuter trains but I expect a high quality service on long intercity journeys. My worst rail experience has to be the Gatwick Express which is a tourist con plain and simple when the Southern service is a fraction of the price and takes the same time.
TheBoyConor wrote: » Why would they do that? Renew and refresh them fine, but like what would be the rationale behind making a concious decision to disimprove the standard of comfort. Why replace nice deep padded seats with rock hard ones like in the MkIvs with skinny tables. Makes no sense. They're trying to force people off of the trains to give them a reason to close lines.
L1011 wrote: » Because deep padded seats and big tables reduce capacity.
ohographite wrote: » I am not sure if this question is relevant to this thread or not, but does anyone here know if the Irish Rail fleet has any diesel-powered trains which can be retrofitted to use hydrogen as fuel instead of diesel?
bk wrote: » Between the Mark 3 and 4, I think Irish Rail got caught out by a changing market. Prior to the Mark 4 trains were often jam packed, with people sitting on the floor, etc. Any seat is better then sitting on the floor, so they seem to have opted to squeeze in more seats at the cost of per seat comfort. However they seemed to miss the challenge to rail that the new motorways would be. Offering greater speed and the comfort of your own car. And worse, not so long after the Mark 4's arrive, along came the private direct non-stop coach services. The coaches were in many ways more comfortable, just as fast and much cheaper and all those sitting on the floors ended up in the coaches. In other words they opted for a more spartan approach at a time that they perhaps should have been focusing on making them more comfortable, so that they could compete on comfort at least versus the motorway and coaches. I wonder if they might change direction for future fleet choices. BTW IR weren't the only ones who made this mistake, BE Expressway did too ordering new coaches that crammed far more seats in with little leg space, just as the privates coach companies arrived with their coaches with more legroom and comfort. BBTW also very much agree with what NeuralNetwork says about the craziness of having to arrive at the station significantly early and queue up to board the train even with a pre-booked ticket. This really kills the argument that trains are faster then coaches, as you lose the time having to be so early, plus the extra journey time too and from Heuston. Well with the Loco hauled trains like the Mark 4, you can just replace the loco with a new one that is overhead electric or hydrogen powered and continue to use the Mark 4 carriages. The 22000 DMU's would be much harder, they aren't designed for it and would likely require a major overhaul to do what the article you linked to is doing. So it might be possible, but probably silly expensive. This is one of the reasons why the FLIRT approach makes so much sense during this transition period. Relatively so easy to switch between DMU/EMU/hydrogen.
ohographite wrote: » What does FLIRT stand for?
devnull wrote: » Stadler FLIRT, it's a type of train:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadler_FLIRT It can be specified as a hybrid / bi-mode.
